Individuals involved in purchasing, outsourcing, and other business-to-business interactions must generally understand and select products and services for their organizations from a variety of competing entities. These individuals currently base their decision making on information obtained from a wide variety of sources, including face-to-face meetings, paper publications, and telephone conversations. They can also consult information that is available electronically, such as databases, provider web sites, and so-called portals. But collecting, managing, and making sense of this abundance of assorted information can be a daunting task. Often, the quality of decision-making suffers due to these high costs. For example, inferior partners may be selected for business relationships to avoid the high costs of searching out better partners.
Once businesses have contracted for a transaction or relationship, typically information must be exchanged many times between individuals, between software systems, and between individuals and software systems. These information exchanges may also occur through a wide variety of mechanisms, including face-to-face meetings, paper publications, and telephone conversations. Again, collecting, managing, and making sense of this abundance of assorted information can be costly and time-consuming. And the quality of the business relationship often suffers because of these high costs.